Bible Lecture 2
With us on the way to Caesarea Philippi
reading the Prophets – Mark 8:27-9:1
On the Road from Emmaus to Jerusalem
When he was at the table with them he took bread, blessed and broke it and gave it to them.
Then their eyes were opened, and they recognised him; and he vanished from their sight.
They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning with us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”
There was nothing else for it.
That same hour, they got up
They made their way through the dark and forbidding streets to the upper room. They found the eleven and their companions gathered together.
There was a buzz of excitement. They were bursting to tell their story but the others got in first.
“The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!”
Cleopas and his travelling companion then started their story. They told the others exactly what had happened on the road, and how Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
They were in full flow, talking about everything that had happened, going through the conversation in every last detail when it happened.
They hadn’t been expecting it
Jesus himself stood among them and said to them
Peace be with you.
They were startled. More than that they were terrified.
They were convinced they were seeing a ghost.
There was something in Jesus’ voice that calmed them, made them focus …
“Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hand s and my feet; see that it is I myself.
Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.
When he had said this he showed them his side and his feet. While in their joy there were disbelieving and still wondering he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?”
They gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and ate in their presence.
Then he said to them something very profound.
In a strange way it was familiar to the two who had journeyed on the road to Emmaus.
These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you – that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.”
Then he did exactly as he had done with the two on the road.
He opened their minds to understand the scriptures.
Luke is in no doubt at all.
This was the priority the risen Jesus had on this Resurrection day.
Jesus wanted to leave his closest disciples a way of reading the Bible, a strategy for reading the bible – it was a way of reading the Bible that found its focus in him.
His concern was to open their minds so that they could understand the scriptures – see how they worked, see what was at the heart of them.
It’s the big question we as Christians need to ask ‘How do we read the Bible?’
Thinking back to our first Bible Study we need to remember the questions Jesus asked of the expert in the Law
What is written in the Law?
What do you read there?
We need to remember the response Jesus accepted
Love God, Love your neighbour.
And we need to remember the Midrash Jesus gave on what is written in the law, the story we think of as the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and we must realise that we can put no limits on who our neighbour is!
Today I want to see what happens when you apply those two questions Jesus asked of the expert of the law to the next section of the Hebrew Scriptures.
What is written in the prophets? What do you read there?
What is written in the prophets is what you find in Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings and in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Book of the Twelve
That’s what’s written in the Prophets – but Jesus is interested in enabling his friends and followers to understand the scriptures.
And so there’s a second question we might expect Jesus to ask …
What do you read there?
To help us I and to move from Luke’s Gospel to Mark’s Gospel and to a passage that comes right in the middle, at the centre of Mark’s Gospel. Indeed it is a passage on which the whole of Mark’s gospel hinges.
As we take a look at Mark 8:27-33 we shall find that the Lord our God is with us wherever we go and when it comes to reading the Prophets he is especially with us on the way to Caesarea Philippi.
Pause and ask people to look at Mark 8:27-33 or bring to mind what they recall of that passage headed ‘Peter’s Declaration about Jesus’ and ask ‘What’s it about?’
Peter’s Declaration about Jesus
27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ 28And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ 29He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’ 30And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection
31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’
I am always in a rush to get to the punch line of a joke, to the end of a story. I have been influenced by the heading of this passage and I rush to Peter’s acclamation of Jesus as Messiah.
Until fairly recently I always tended to skip over what the disciples report the crowds as saying.
I have read it in a tone of voice which suggests that Jesus implies that the people have got the wrong answer – of course he’s not John the Baptist! Of course he’s not Elijah! Of course he’s not one of the prophets!
But I have been thinking again about this conversation.
Let’s suppose Jesus is asking a very searching question. He is wanting to check out whether he is getting the message across, whether people have really understood what he is about.
And so on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”
When they answered him John the Baptist I wonder now whether a smile began to creep over Jesus’ face. Yes, they are beginning to get it, was his implied response.
Others were saying Elijah. The smile was growing. Yes, so they are getting the message, Jesus thought.
And still others, one of the prophets.
By now Jesus was excited. Yes the people had got the message.
They were beginning to understand what he was doing, what he was saying.
Jesus is quite clear on the evening of resurrection day that everything written about him in the Law, the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.
But in what way did Jesus set about fulfilling the prophets?
How does Jesus fulfil the prophets?
It is very easy to slip into the way of thinking that scattered through prophets are predictions that come true in the story of Jesus.
I wonder whether something very different is going on, something very much more interesting.
One thing we know about Jesus is that from a very young age he knew his Bible.
At the age of 12 when taken up to Jerusalem by his parents he went missing. When they found him, what did they find him doing?
They found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understand ing and his answers.
1) Jesus positions himself in the line of the prophets as a prophet
Might it be that by the time Jesus embarks on his mission and his ministry he deliberately models himself on what the prophets did. In the synagogue in Nazareth he described himself as a prophet, ‘a prophet is not without honour except in his own land ’.
When his cousin John the Baptist appears and starts his ministry he dresses like the archetypal prophet of old as if he is another Elijah, another Elisha, another prophet. His message is a powerful indictment of the powers that be exactly in the mould of the prophets of old.
When Elijah died he took Elisha with him down into the Jordan and up from the Jordan and then he cast down his mantle for Elisha to take up the mantle of Elijah, cross back through the Jordan and take up where Elijah had left off.
And when the time comes for Jesus to start his ministry he goes down into the Jordan is baptised by John and then comes up out of the Jordan into the wilderness … and only when John has been arrested does he begin his ministry.
It is as if Jesus is taking up the mantle passed on from Elijah to Elisha passed on down through that great line of prophets passed on to John the Baptist and now passed on to Jesus.
Repent – not so much sorry as have a whole new way of thinking, a whole new way of looking at the world for the kingdom of heaven has come near. Matthew 3:2
And when John had been arrested, from that time Jesus began to proclaim Repent, not so much sorry as have a whole new way of thinking, a whole new way of looking at the world for the kingdom of heaven has come near. Matthew 4:12,17.
The words are identical.
What is it about the prophets that John takes up and Jesus does too?
Joshua to the end of 2 Kings sees the slow move of the people towards thinking of themselves as a kingdom.
The prophets are those who see that move as fraught with dangers. They are the ones who challenge those who aspire to positions of power, who hold them to account. They are the ones who speak truth to power.
When Abimelech attempts to forma a monarchy in Judges 9 Jotham tells a parable, a story about the trees of the forest who look for one tree to be King over them. The olive, the fig tree, the vine all say their task is to produce olives, figs, grapes – they cannot be king. It is only the bramble that is left … and the bramble is only too keen to seize power and become king with calamitous consequences.
When the people demand a king to be just like the nations, Samuel warns them in no uncertain terms that God alone must rule over them.
When David arranges the death of Uriah and takes Bathsheba to be his wife he thinks he has got away with murder until Nathan tells him a story about two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very man flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had brought up. When a traveller came to the rich man seeking hospitality, the rich man did not want to lose one of his fine creatures and so took the poor man’s one and only lamb to make a feast of it.
Elijah, Elisha, Amos, Micah, Isaiah – as the story of the kingdom unfolds it is a sorry tale whereby those in power are so often found lacking – and it is the prophets who speak truth to power, hold the king to account and challenge.
This is exactly what John the Baptist did as Luke records in his powerful preaching – it is when he calls Herod the Great’s son, Herod Antipas to account for his marital arrangements that he is arrested.
When he is executed Jesus withdraws to the mountain to be quiet in prayer.
Jesus’ preaching in the sermon on the mount, in so much that he does holds the powers that be to account. When that same Herod Antipas hears what Jesus is doing and what he is saying he is taken aback – he thought he had silenced John the Baptist, now Jesus is saying much the same thing. Pharisees came to Jesus warning him that Herod wanted to kill him.
In replying Jesus speaks of himself as a prophet and speaks to Herod in the voice of a prophet holding truth to power
Go and tell that fox for me. Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem .
In the Herodian City of Caesarea Phiilipp Jesus checks to see if the people have got it.
It is not without significance that it is when Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesara Philippi and when he is on the way that he asked his disciples, Who do people say that I am?
It’s easy to miss the point. But location is important here, very important.
This is one of hose points in the Gospel story when geography matters.
Here it matters a lot.
Where is Caesarea Philippi? What is Caesarea Philippi. It is significant for Mark – he wants us to know exactly where Jesus is at this point.
Caesarea Philippi is a brand new town.
It is one of those great towns that were built first by Herod the Great and then by his sons as his Jewish kingdom was divided among them.
Herod the Great was a tyrant, ruling his people with a rod of iron. His building works were monumental and designed to establish his power over the people.
His summer palace overlooking Bethlehem was to be his mausoleum and it was incredibly powerful statement. He carved off the top of a mountain shored up its sides and sank into the top a palace that would be cool in the heat of the summer. At the foot of the mountain a palatial villa complete with a large scale pool big enough to have mock battles with small –scale war ships. And on the side of the hill his mausoleum
On the coast he built the city of Caesarea – named after ht emperor. It had a full sized chariot racing stadium, a theatre, it was the seat of government for the roman occupation of Judea and Samaria – and in the theatre they have discovered a seat with Pontius Pilate’s name on it. The harbour used under water setting cement and as ships arrived trading across the Mediterranean world they were greeted with the sight of a temple Herod the Great had built to Augustus the emperor as Son of God.
The part of his kingdom to the west of the Sea of Galilee was hand ed over to Herod Antipas. And what should he do but set about rebuilding the city of Sepphoris near Nazareth up in the hills, and by the shores of the Sea of Galilee a great new Roman city, tourist resort complete with shopping mall and theatre, the city of Tiberias .
And Philip another son, had the area to the north and east of Galillee – and he too built a city nestling uneder the hills and he called it Caesarea after the emperor and I nall humility to differentiate it from his father’s city on the coast he called it Philips’ Caesarea , Caesarea Philippi. Ooh and he built a temple to the Emperor as Son of God.
It had been a stroke of genius of Augustus, the first Roman emperor to decree that his Dad, Julius Caesar was a god. If his dad was god, what did that make him, Son of God?
And you owe complete allegiance to the Emperor as Son of God.
What is Jesus message?
Repent – not just say sorry, not just turn around and make a new start. Have a whole new way of thinking a whole new meta narrative to understand the world – metanoio – repent. For the Kingdom of heaven has come near.
He makes his base in Capernaum facing off Tiberias – he offers an alternative way of being kingdom to the Roman way of empire – it is based on love for God, love for neighbour, love for enemy too
Jesus is himself a prophetic voice speaking truth to power … and it is no wonder that the is arrested and executed by Herod in collaboration with Pontius Pilate.
Read through the prophets to see the way they bring people back to God and the way they speak out against the powers that be – and this is the line that Jesus is in.
But he is more than a prophet.
He turns to the disciples and asks, “Who do you say that I am?”
And Peter is the one who responds.
You are the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one, the one anointed of God to be king in the kingdom of God
2) Jesus shapes the way he is to be Messiah by drawing on those passages that show what it takes to rule in God’s Way in God’s Kingdom
Jesus accepts this description and goes on to describe how the Messiah must suffer, be killed and after three days rise again.
Peter doesn’t however read the prophets in that way at all.
And so he intervenes.
As far as Peter is concerned the Messiah will be one to overturn the might of Rome and use might to do it – Jesus will be another Joshua, as it were, coming in power and might … and so Peter takes Jesus on one side and rebukes him.
He wouldn’t let such a thing happen.
This elicits a really strong response from Jesus
Looking at the disciples he rebuked Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.
In one sense Jesus fulfilled the prophets simply by living, working, preaching, telling stories, doing miracles and taking a stand against the powers that be in exactly the way the prophets had done.
In another way he has an understand ing of the Prophets that draws him to particular passages that show what it takes to rule in God’s way in God’s Kingdom. These were the passages the prophets of old used to hold their kings to account. These are the passages that Jesus draws on as he shapes the way he envisages God’s rule to happen.
So what does it take to rule in God’s way in God’s kingdom?
What does it take – in the first sermon in Nazareth that he preaches he shapes the kind of Messiah he is to be from Isaiah 61
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
Initially all spoke well of him and were amazed at the words of grace that came from his mouth.
But in Jesus’ mind it wasn’t just ‘our poor’ that needed good news preached to them – it was all poor – it was when Jesus recalled an incident in the life of Elijah when he was sent to the widow at Zarephath in Sidon, a Gentile, and an incident in the life of Elisha when he was sent to cleanse Naaman the Syrian that the crowds turn against Jesus.
Other passages have gown to be linked with Jesus, the Messiah.
Isaiah 7 – that in Jesus God is with us – Immanuel.
Isaiah 9 –
authority rests upon his shoulders;
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time onwards and for evermore.
Isaiah 11
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understand ing,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
Isaiah 32
See, a king will reign in righteousness
And princes will rule with justice
He will be a suffering servant in the mould of Isaiah 53.
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despisedand rejected by others;
a man of sufferingand acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised,and we held him of no account.
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised
a man of suffering
he was despised,
These passages are the ones that find their focus in Jesus because these are the passages that determine what it takes to rule in God’s way in God’s kingdom..
What’s written in the prophets runs from Joshua chapter 1 verse 1 through to II Kings chapter 25 verse 30.
What you read there finds its focus on the way the prophets hold the powers that be to account and show what it takes to rule in God’s way in God’s kingdom – and what it takes amounts to nothing less than righteousness and justice, good news to the poor, release to the captive.
Read the prophets in this way and something happens.
Seven weeks after that first Resurrection day, Peter it was who on the Day of Pentecost was the first to draw on the kind of passages from the prophets that Jesus had opened up as he could see that that prophetic role was now to be passed on to us
In the words of the prophet Joel
God declares
I will pour out my spirit on all flesh,
And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
And your young men shall see visions
And your old men shall dream dreams
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
In those days I will pour out my Spirit
And they will prophesy.
Read the Prophets in this way, through the eyes of Jesus and it becomes and we too must take up the mantle of the prophets from Jesus and have a prophetic voice. We are called to speak truth to power, holding the powers that be to account.
And we can measure what those in power do by the very measure Jesus used as we recognise that what it takes to rule in God’s way under God’s kingdom is that kind of justice, that kind of righteousness that is indeed good news for the poor.
As you seek to fulfil that prophetic voice and shape be sure to know that the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.
No comments:
Post a Comment